KENTWOOD TEACHERS, STAFF VOTE TO LET UNION LEADERS CALL STRIKE
KENTWOOD, Mich. — Teachers and staff in Kentwood have voted to
authorize their union leaders to call a strike against the Kentwood
school district, according to the Grand Rapids Press and WXMI-TV
in Grand Rapids. The vote was held in response to an impasse in
contract talks that has lasted for nearly a year and a half.

A final vote tally last week allowed the local leadership to call for a
strike if it felt insufficient progress was being made in bargaining
talks. Of the 900 union members, nearly 800 reportedly authorized the
possibility of a strike.

The vote doesn't necessarily mean teachers will immediately walk off
the job, said local union president Jim Sawyer. "I think it's premature
to talk about picket lines and work stoppages and things like that," he
told "FOX 17 News at Ten." "We have to get back to the bargaining table
and bargain, and that's our plan at this time."

A nine-hour bargaining session on Thursday failed to bring any solution
in the contract talks. The main issue in contention is the cost of
employee health insurance.

School district administrators say that in the event of a strike, they
reserve the right to contract school services to private firms in order
to keep the schools running. District officials say that they have
already lined up parent volunteers to replace support staff, and that
they can fire any teachers who choose to strike.

Teacher strikes in Michigan are illegal under Public Act 112 of 1994,
which penalizes teachers who walk off the job during the school year.
The last strike in Kentwood was in 1980.

Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Analyst Says: Close Teacher Strike
Loophole That Allowed Anti-Charter School Protest," October 2003
http://www.mackinac.org/5822

Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Failure of Anti-Strike Law to Deter
Teachers Calls for New Measures, Analyst Says," September 1999
http://www.mackinac.org/2468

SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS TO FACE TOUGHER LICENSE REQUIREMENTS
HOUGHTON, Mich. — Michigan legislators last week approved a tougher
licensing system for school bus drivers, adding new tests to the driver
certification process. The change was made to bring the state into
compliance with federal bus safety regulations, according to the Daily
Mining Gazette.

The bills would require that bus drivers obtain an "S" endorsement on
their driver's license, which consists of extra written and driving
tests for all new drivers. Current drivers would have until Sept. 30,
2005 to take the new tests to retain their certification. "Being a
school bus driver is a tremendous responsibility for anybody, and I
think we take it very seriously and make sure our drivers are trained
as well as they can be," said Hancock Public Schools Superintendent
John Vaara.

But the new requirements could make it more difficult to find
substitute bus drivers, said Vaara. "Finding (substitute drivers) is a
problem, and I don't know how that would fit into that particular piece
of legislation," he said.

SECRETARY OF EDUCATION CALLS FOR END TO COLLEGE LOAN LOOPHOLE
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. secretary of education called on Congress
last week to reform the nation's college loan program and close a
loophole that has cost the government more than $1 billion since the
1980s.

The Higher Education Act allows entities that provide federal loans,
such as states and some nonprofit organizations, to collect 9.5 percent
interest payments from the federal government, while the current market
rate for loans is around 3.4 percent. These entities can keep the extra
interest income, causing an excess of payments from taxpayers to loan
institutions.

Though some members of Congress have called upon the Bush
administration to directly intervene in the law, immediately stopping
payments, Education Secretary Rod Paige said a legislative session
would be "the most direct and expeditious" solution to the loophole.
Congress is currently working on a reauthorization of the Higher
Education Act, which legislators indicate could include a fix to the
overpayment loophole.

HOME-SCHOOLERS TAKE OFFENSE AT MUSKEGON MOCK TERRORIST DRILL
MUSKEGON, Mich. — A mock terrorist exercise in Muskegon last month
offended home-schoolers nationwide through its choice of an imagined
terrorist group, which home-schoolers say unfairly characterized them
as violent extremists.

City and school officials coordinated the exercise to prepare for a
possible scenario in which a bomb was planted by terrorists in a school
bus full of children. The name of the terrorist group used by
coordinators was "Wackos Against Schools and Education," who, according
to materials describing the scenario, believed that everyone should be
home-schooled. That description was published in the Muskegon Chronicle
to explain the exercise, leading to a flood of calls and e-mails from
home-schoolers and home-school advocacy groups across the nation.
"Home-schoolers have never been accused of violence against any
school," said Chris Klicka of the Washington-based Home-Schooling Legal
Defense Association. "There's an outpouring from the nation — it's a
mockery against what home-schooling is and the contributions home-schoolers have made to the country."

Daniel Stout, chief deputy of emergency services for the Muskegon
Sheriff's Department, said his intention with the name was not to make
a statement against home-schoolers. "That's just what I decided to
use," he told the Muskegon Chronicle. "It may have been a poor choice,
but that's what was used ... I'm the one who wrote the scenario."
The Muskegon Area Intermediate School District issued a statement
saying they were not aware of the name when it was created, but
apologized for its connotation. "We sincerely regret offending home-school educators," the statement said. "We believe that all parents are
educators and do important work at home with their children."

STUDY: STUDENTS USING MILWAUKEE VOUCHERS GRADUATE AT HIGH RATE
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A study published last week of Milwaukee students
using tuition vouchers to attend private schools finds that these
students graduate at a higher rate than students enrolled in the
Milwaukee Public Schools. The study's author, Jay P. Greene of the New
York-based Manhattan Institute, says the results suggest the 14-year-old program may be achieving unusual success.

According to the study, about 64 percent of students using vouchers to
attend private schools in the Milwaukee area graduate from high school
after four years, compared to just 36 percent of students in Milwaukee
public schools. "Nationwide, roughly half of students in urban high
schools fail to receive a regular high school diploma," said Greene.
"In Milwaukee and Cleveland, it's well under half. Any program that
offers a big improvement in the probability of urban students
graduating is something that we should be very interested in."

Some scholars said they questioned the study because it relied on data
from 10 of 100 private schools accepting tuition voucher students.
These students may also come from more motivated families, which could
account for their achievement, said Richard D. Kahlenburg of Milwaukee-based Century Foundation.

Greene acknowledged this fact, but pointed to several Milwaukee public
schools that have selective admission requirements where the gradation
rate is 41 percent — well below the 64 percent rate of tuition voucher
students.

Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "The Universal Tuition Tax Credit: A
Proposal to Advance Parental Choice in Education," November 1997
http://www.mackinac.org/362

Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "The Case for Choice in Schooling:
Restoring Parental Control of Education," January 2001
http://www.mackinac.org/3236

FRAUD, WASTE FORCE GOVERNMENT TO HALT INTERNET GRANTS TO SCHOOLS
NEW YORK — Allegations and incidents of fraud and waste in a $2.25
billion federal program to increase educational Internet access have
forced government officials to temporarily shut down the program and
discuss new rules for disbursing the funds.

The program, which provides grants to schools and libraries for
Internet connections, is overseen by the Federal Communications
Commission. Funds come from a telecommunications service tax begun in
the Clinton Administration under the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
Tighter rules on spending being formulated by government officials
forced the Universal Service Administrative Company, the nonprofit that
distributes the program's money, to liquidate more than $3 billion in
investments last week, possibly at a loss.

The moratorium on the "E-Rate" program, as it is called, began two
months ago with no notice and will continue until program
administrators say it is ready to filter out the fraud and waste
evident in the program's history. Sen. Olympia J. Snow, R-Maine, one of
the program's original co-sponsors, said the moratorium endangers the
program's future. "This has the potential to imperil the program by
leaving it in a state of such uncertainty," she said. "It raises
questions about why these decisions were made."

Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "State Provision of Internet Access:
A Bad Idea Whose Time Shouldn't Come," December 2001
http://www.mackinac.org/3874

MICHIGAN EDUCATION DIGEST is a service of Michigan Education
Report (http://www.educationreport.org),
a quarterly newspaper
with a circulation of 130,000 published by the Mackinac Center
for Public Policy (http://www.mackinac.org),
a private,
nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute.